Abstract #3272

A Fast and Globally Optimal 3-D Graph Search Algorithm for Phase Unwrapping in MRI with Applications in Quantitative Susceptibility Mapping (QSM)

Chen Cui¹, Abhay Shah¹, Cameron M. Cushing², Vince Magnotta³, Xiaodong Wu^1,2, and Mathews Jacob¹

¹Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA, United States, ²Radiology Oncology, University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics, Iowa City, IA, United States, ³Radiology, University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics, Iowa City, IA, United States

Phase wrapping is a classic problem in many fields of study. In MRI, Unwrapping the phase in the estimation of B0 field inhomogeneity maps is challenging commonly due to the presence of a large field inhomogeneity, anatomical discontinuities or low SNR in certain regions of the map (e.g. boundaries). We propose a general phase unwrapping method that exploits the smoothness of the field map in three spatial dimensions. The method is solved using a linear-convex constrained graph search algorithm that provides the globally guaranteed optimal solution without over-smoothing effect. The proposed scheme aims to produce a robust solution for field map estimation that will further improve the quality of quantitative susceptibility mapping (QSM).

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